kPicasa Gallery EOL

March 7th, 2019 No Comments »

It is with great sadness that the Picasa API has been shut down by Google. This renders kPicasa Gallery completely useless. The project is now dead. Thank to the 70,995 of you who downloaded my plugin over the last 12 years!

This website remains up for prosperity!

kPicasa Gallery 0.2.9

February 28th, 2012 10 Comments »

I received an email from WordPress telling me that the Highslide licence was incompatible with the WordPress licence. Unfortunately, I had to remove Highslide from kPicasa Gallery. Sorry for the inconvenience.

Your plugin http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/kpicasa-gallery has had to be temporarily withdrawn from the WordPress plugin, as it contains code that has not been released under the GPL (or a compatible license)

The file containing the code is: highslide

Plugins are, and have always been, required to be GPL (or compatible) licensed, as clearly stated at http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/about/

Home network/multimedia topology

February 14th, 2012 No Comments »

I had a little fun and laid out how every device in my home are linked together. The ultimate goal behind this setup was to be able to play  music in the living room. The music is stored on the DiskStation NAS and it’s able to stream to the AirPort Express that is connected to my amplifier. I can control the DiskStation with my iPhone, iPad or any computer. They all have access to my full library.

My new password strategy

November 4th, 2011 3 Comments »

A few weeks ago, I was notified by my credit card company that they had detected fraudulent charges on my credit card. I was surprised because I use that card like 2-3 times a year and it had not been used for almost 6 months, but knowing that they would reverse the charges without any hassle, I didn’t really think much of it.  But then they also told me that the person who did this had enough information on me to call them, answer correctly to the standard security questions and have my address changed in their system. That freaked me out.

I have no idea how they got that information. Was it a malware on my computer? As far as I know, my computers are clean. Did they break into one of my online accounts and got a bunch of information? Did they hack an online store where I had purchased stuff before? Who knows. That also freaks me out. Especially since I use the same 3-4 passwords everywhere.

So I decided to blow the dust off good old KeePass, which I had tried before. I generated new random passwords for all of my banking accounts, email accounts, eBay, PayPal, Facebook, Twitter, etc. I installed MiniKeePass on my iPhone/iPad so I can access my accounts when I’m on the go. Synchronizing the master file between my computer and the iPhone/iPad isn’t as easy as it should, but it should be improved in an upcoming version.

That is now the most important file on my computer and needs to be backed up religiously. It’s automatically backed up to my NAS, but I’m screwed if the whole house catches on fire. So I configured Syncplicity to backup that file as well. But again, what happens if my house burns down – I need my KeePass file to retrieve the password to access my Syncplicity account to retrieve my file! So I’ve scheduled a daily backup to a server at work. Our sysadmin will send me back my file if I ever loose everything else.

Am I missing something? What’s your strategy?

kPicasa Gallery 0.2.7

October 15th, 2011 16 Comments »

This new version fixes a bug where the image thumbnail size was incorrectly saved, and unchecking « Picasa slideshow link » wasn’t saved either.

As a new feature, it is now possible to enter your own values for these fields (instead of one of the predefined choices):

  • Album thumbnail size
  • Image thumbnail size
  • Image full size

kPicasa Gallery 0.2.6

October 8th, 2011 4 Comments »

I didn’t realise I had started to work on other improvements before releasing 0.2.5.

Google has doubled the maximum image size from 800 pixels to 1600 pixels. So kPicasa Gallery now has the option to select what image size you want.

I also corrected a small bug that always showed the « Picasa slideshow link », even if that option was unchecked.

kPicasa Gallery 0.2.5

October 8th, 2011 No Comments »

I received a lot of requests to hide the new Google+ albums (scrapbook and profile albums). So this maintenance release only adds an option to show/hide them.

Fido, never again!

June 6th, 2011 1 Comment »

I called Fido to change my address and my phone number because I moved to another province. I remember seing ads on TV where Fido proudly said their customer representatives are now easy to reach. This is total bullshit, I called 611 and chose the option to change my address but I seemed to be in a dead end: I was told to wait but after a few minutes of holding I wasn’t even sure if my call was still in the system, I didn’t even had background music to let me know the line is still alive. I called back repeatedly but couldn’t find a way to talk to a human being. I abandonned out of frustration.

After looking on the internet for a way to talk to get to a human, I called back and tried again the option to change my address and I finally ended up in a queue.

A nice guy picked up my call and apologized for the trouble. He changed my address but as he was looking for a new number in my area, the line cut off for some reason. Grrr. Fortunately, he called me back as I was dialing back 611. I noticed that the caller id was not 611 but rather a regular number, but didn’t think twice about it. The representative was helpful, but unfortunately Fido don’t have any local numbers in my area so I’ll have to switch carrier when my prepaid credits expire.

After hanging up, I try to log into my account on their website and I get Java timeout errors (their website is so unstable it could have a blog article on its own). After trying back 15 minutes later, I finally get it working but WTF, my balance now shows $0.00 and my account status is deactivated!!! I had about $25 before I called them!!! And to add insult to injury, I was charged $4.60 for long distance when the customer representative called me back because I am out of my current local calling area!!! What kind of shitty system is this??? And lucky as I am, customer service is now closed for the day.

I just want to scream out of anger!

IMPORTANT: Problem in the last two days

May 27th, 2011 5 Comments »

For those who were having problems with kPicasa Gallery for the last two days, please be aware that it was because of a modification to the XML provided by Google. They acknowledged that it was a bug and fixed the problem last night. Everything should be back to normal.

Link to the discussion on the Google Groups:
http://groups.google.com/group/google-picasa-data-api/browse_thread/thread/5861daf155a0e725?pli=1

Thank you donators

October 26th, 2010 10 Comments »

I would like to take a few moments to thank the people who donated money via PayPal. I’ve invested a lot of time in kPicasa Gallery and it’s a good feeling when people show their appreciation, whether by leaving comments, rating it on the WordPress plugin page or donating money.

For those who are curious, I used that money to:

  • Buy an iPhone armband that I use for jogging
  • Buy a subscription to MetaFilter
  • Donate a few dollars to Jeffrey Friedl, for his Export to Picasa plugin for Adobe Lightroom
  • Buy a 52mm-58mm step-up ring adapter so I can install my circular polarized filter on my 50mm f/1.8 lens